


kairosclerosis

by mutantmeme



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (but let's face it teen wolf has the worst timeline sense so), F/F, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Torture, Liberties Taken With Chronology, POV Second Person, Pet Names, Werewolf Pain-Relief Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-04-24
Packaged: 2018-01-20 16:08:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1516763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mutantmeme/pseuds/mutantmeme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>six times erica called cora a term of endearment (and the last time that it went without saying)</p>
            </blockquote>





	kairosclerosis

**i.**

For hours she’s just a blank figure cast in the endless bank vault shadows – then the full moon passes without rancour and she says: “I’m Cora.”

You lick your chapped lips and smirk. “Erica Reyes. You’re not from around here, are you?”

Her eyes – Cora’s cold brown eyes – blink slowly. “You’re in the new Hale pack.”

Before you fully realise it, you’re chuckling for the first time in weeks. Boyd nudges your shoulder, a lopsided smile shyly illuminating the cuts on his face and there’s a furl of warmth low in your gut. “That’s one hell of a non sequitur, gorgeous.”

“Don’t call me gorgeous,” Cora growls, but her mouth twitches and her tiny laugh sounds like sandpaper. You’ve never called yourself a masochist per se – however, you could listen to her until your ears bleed.

**ii.**

The next morning she’s waiting for you to wake up, sitting cross-legged against the wall and picking her fingernails. They’re dirty and bitten and a little bit feral, kind of like the way she asks who you are.

“I told you my name.”

Cora’s eyes narrow. “Names don’t define people.”

“I don’t know,” you leer, “I could be your eternal ruler any day, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me sweetheart either, _Erica_ ,” Cora snaps. Beside you Boyd stretches awake, the motion driving a chisel into his pained frown. He pretends not to listen as you bicker with Cora, hurling diatribes on her pseudo-nihilism when she digs her claws into your sarcastic innuendos. It only takes half an hour for the act to feel routine, as if you’ve been arguing with this sardonic teenager for years.

After those thirty minutes Boyd has to duck his head to suppress a giggle at your expense. Cora’s not smiling, but you grin wide enough for the two of you.

**iii.**

They enter your vault without any pomp and circumstance, only staying long enough to pluck Cora from the floor and kick and scratch and scream at her trembling, furious form. You can barely understand their howls; every hit to Cora’s steeled bones sends a scalding roar of blood through your eardrums, pounding a battle hymn through your scrambling nails. Boyd’s arms wind around your body, and you didn’t realise you were thrashing at the shoeless alpha and her tall companion until his sweated skin pushes firm against yours. You’ll never have an anchor and he’s as close as you’ll get.

They leave your vault without any pomp and circumstance, lingering only to sneer at the tempest in your amber eyes and the resignation in Boyd’s. Cora hacks violently, blood bubbling on the swell of her split lip. She reminds you of a trashy vampire novel cover, all brutal scarlets and an explosion of sterile white.

Derek said that vampires don’t actually exist. You’re willing to suspend belief for the sake of lycanthropy leaping out of your father’s fairytales.

“Hey, sugar, let me look at that,” you crawl over to Cora, wincing at her prone limbs. She’s practically stillness incarnate, but from what minutiae you’ve learnt you know that she is never entirely motionless.

Cora flinches at first, when you grasp her wrist and brush a thumb along her erratic pulse-point. You don’t know what happens exactly, because within the moment your veins seep black from her bloodied flesh and your heart’s beating double-time from a dizzying rush of pain. You can’t taste anything in your mouth and your touch only stutters for her relieved sigh, so this isn’t related to your epilepsy. It’s –

“A pain-pull,” Cora’s saying, her head heavy on your lap. You raise an eyebrow and she shrugs. “You looked confused.”

“Of course I was confused, I just absorbed your fucking pain,” you snipe back. Her stare remains true on your throat, trailing listlessly with each swallow. “How do you—?”

“I’m a born werewolf; I grew up learning these things,” Cora states. The hand calming her gooseflesh freezes and you demand to know her surname.

Cora Hale’s telling you that names don’t define people. You refuse to speak to her for the rest of the night, even as her face stays pressed against your shivering thighs for the indeterminable hours hence.

 

( _You’re angry when she won’t apologise – and then there’s a bloom of pride unraveling in your chest because she won’t let up. The stubborn set of her jaw, her terse words to Boyd, the acute miasma of frustration coiling on her breath: you love to hate this vexing little Hale child._

_But you don’t love her. You don’t love people after knowing them for twenty-four hours, right?_

_Let’s call you intrigued, then. It’s intrigue when you fall asleep on her shoulder. It’s intrigue when she draws some of the ache from your muscles to make a point and your sinew crackles like a homely fireplace you’ve never glimpsed outside family films._

_It’s intriguing that you’re willing to lie to yourself like this – you don’t love her_ yet).

 

**iv.**

There hasn’t been any food thrown in your vault in two days. Boyd’s clutching your side: a comfort despite the occasional shiver trailing down his nervous system and every whine of his stomach. Cora watches you from across the vault, hands shaking on her drawn knees.

You gesture with your free arm. “Come here, pretty girl,” your rasp, catching on the endearment. She cocks her head, curiously animalistic, and her yellow-hue eyes flicker to yours for confirmation. You stare right back with the same brown you’ve had since birth. Cora unwinds and her joints crack around the maw of a prison as she edges towards your torso.

 She doesn’t thank you, but her exhale against your chest is an ersatz reminder that the sentiment is still there.

**v.**

“So, what was Derek like growing up? I bet he was into Justin Timberlake.”

“What?”

“Come on, everyone has a crush Justin Timberlake at some point in their lives.”

“No, Erica, Derek wasn’t into Justin Timberlake. And stop staring at me like that!”

“God, you’re such a grumpy dandelion.”

“Shut up. You too, Boyd.”

**vi.**

You haven’t been bothered for a day and half now; Cora’s wounds have almost entirely healed and you don’t have an excuse to beckon her for hugs any more, but you keep doing it. It’s probably an absurd hour of the morning when she leans back and catches your eye and asks what you’re doing with the effectiveness of Excalibur slicing through your chainmail.

Hoping that your cocky half-grin will stabilise your heartbeat, you retort: “I thought it was obvious, beautiful. Should I take off my pants, or have you figured out what a booty call looks like by now?”

Cora rolls her eyes. “You’re lying. I don’t make out with liars.”

“So I should be honest?” you murmur, moving a hairsbreadth closer. Cora’s gaze flitters to your lips, her tongue swiping her own, and it’s all the incentive you need. “Cora, kiss me. Please.”

“At least you’re polite,” Cora sighs, as if it’s entirely put-upon, as if you’re her partner of seventeen years and won’t admit that you love her taste in obscure indie films, as if there’s a cobblestone future extending from this moment and she has all the time in the world to rag on you.

So you reach out and twine a shaking hand in the greasy hair at the nape of her neck and ignore the old sourness on her breath as you push your lips on hers and squeeze your eyes painfully shut. You won’t let yourself see the softness in her expression, as if she’s hopeful that you’ll make it out alive when they’ve marked you as a corpse since the first day you were thrown into this cold, empty vault.

 

( _“I know we’re going to die,” Cora says when your kisses trail to her pulse point. It’s steady. You keep going anyway, eyes wide open, the damp stains on her shirt growing heedlessly_.)

 

**+**

Boyd is a saint – you’re assured of this. He falls asleep with a tiny smirk when you peck Cora on the cheek and you barely catch his mumbled congratulations, but it’s enough to lighten your chest for a few hours.

You relax into Cora’s lap, talking about nothing in particular. You tell her about your life before werewolves, about life at the bottom rungs of the ladder where flecks of dirt from your peer’s boots fell from their great heights into your tangled hair. She tells you about her sister, Laura, the sophisticated bookworm of the family who drank copious amounts of tea and turned her nose up at popular culture. You laugh and call her a hipster. Cora pokes your shoulder and reminds you that no one makes fun of her sister but _her_ , _shut up Reyes._

You tell her about Isaac (Boyd hums in his ‘sleep’) and how alive he made you feel. You tell her about Scott – she scoffs when you call him one of the most honest, genuinely good people on the planet. You tell her about Stiles, whom you crushed on hard before you realised that being a colossal jerk to hide your rampant insecurities wasn’t something to be idealised.

She’s telling you about some hijinks with banshee down in South America when the vault door grinds open. The alpha with the sunglasses – Deucalion, you’ve come to learn – releases his assistant’s arm and chuckles low, letting the vibrations rebound around the tiny space. Cora’s hand is still buried in your hair, mid-stroke, and she doesn’t let go when Deucalion calls your name. You feel like a dog, a common bitch under his sightless scrutiny, and neither Cora nor Boyd can cover your mouth when you spit at his face.

You learn that alphas don’t take kindly to disrespect, but maybe you’ve known that for ages now. Technicalities don’t exactly matter when his assistant is dragging you from Cora’s arms and she’s growling with abandon, a veritable monster, and you’re lashing out because your skin is blistering under the imminent threat of, of, you know, of –

Deucalion is holding something to your skin; you don’t care if it’s a gun or a knife or whatever kills a werewolf, you don’t care and Boyd is crying and you don’t care and Cora starting to scream and _you don’t care,_ except you’ve never been the best liar and you can’t lie now.

You don’t want to lie to yourself, not like this. Your head is being forced back so you start laughing; you slap on a grin like wet cement and hope it holds long enough. “That’s the best you’ve got?” you yell at the ceiling. Deucalion says something, presumably a nefarious and overwrought cliché, so you shut your eyes and hope: _you guys are going to get out of here._

Cora’s voice breaks in the middle of, “I’ll ram those fucking glasses so far up your ass you won’t see the sun shine, you fucker!” and you can almost feel her dry palms enveloping yours. Against all odds, your smile holds. _That was one hell of a non sequitur, gorgeous._

 

 


End file.
